Musa Saidykhan

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5. Building Pressure, Enforcing Compliance

The United Nations has escalated its focus on journalist killings, declaring that unpunished attacks against journalists are a major threat not only to press freedom, but also to all major areas of the U.N.’s work. In recent years, it has adopted two resolutions addressing journalists’ safety and impunity and launched a plan of action. These have come on top of existing Security Council Resolution 1738, which condemns attacks against journalists in conflict. “There must be no impunity for those who target journalists for violence,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proclaimed in a statement in the run-up to World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2014.

Abuja, Nigeria, June 10, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today's ruling by a West African regional court, which found that the Gambian government failed to conduct a meaningful investigation into the murder of journalist Deyda Hydara. The ruling is the first ECOWAS case relating to the murder of a Gambian journalist.

Abuja, Nigeria, January 9, 2013--Gambian authorities
should immediately release Abdoulie John, a journalist who has been detained without
charge in Banjul since Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
John has been harassed by the Gambian National Intelligence Agency since early
December, news reports said.

John, editor of the online news website Jollof
Newsand a contributor to The Associated Press, was summoned for
questioning at the headquarters of the NIA at around 2 p.m. on Monday, Lamin
Jahateh, a representative of the Gambia Press Union, who was with John at the
time, told CPJ. John was questioned for about three hours, he said. Emil Touray,
president of the union, told CPJ that the agents took John to his home where
they conducted a search, before returning him to custody.

Good news for Gambia's beleaguered independent press has been rare
during President Yahya Jammeh's 17-year rule, but last week brought three potentially
positive developments. It's unclear whether they mark a real change in the
status quo, but they may at least increase the resolve of advocacy groups to
seek improvements.

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New York, December 17, 2010--Musa Saidykhan, who was detained for three weeks in 2006 by Gambian state security agents, was tortured and must receive compensation, a West African regional court ruled on Thursday.